


Hey

by RunWithWolves



Series: 25 Days of Sweetheart [21]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Soulmates AU, canon all seasons + movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 00:06:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12715674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunWithWolves/pseuds/RunWithWolves
Summary: In a world where everyone is born with the first words their soulmate says to them written on their arm, Laura's learned not to get excited when she hears her own. The word is common and constant and something she hears a hundred different times a day. So when Carmilla's first word matches her arm, Laura doesn't react. Luckily, Carmilla stops dead in her tracks at Laura's response. So they're soulmates.Laura always thought finding her soulmate was the hard part; as it turns out, it's not that simple. Carmilla is the worst and doesn't even believe in soulmates.Perhaps it's not the words on their arms that make a soulmate. Maybe it's something else.





	Hey

**Author's Note:**

> today on 'things aria has overanalyzed that the show creators probably didn't notice but give her all the feels' we have THIS.
> 
> DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG I WAITED TO BE ABLE TO WRITE THIS?!? SINCE THE BEGINNING BUT THEY MADE ME WAIT FOR THE MOVIE BEFORE GETTING CLOSURE. Also, i've always wanted to do this take on the soulmate au.

The word written on Laura’s arm, the first words said to her by her soulmate, is so innocuous that she doesn’t even react to it anymore. It’s something that was said to her at least half a dozen times a day. 

So when Carmilla strides into her dormroom with an oversized backpack and a “hey” thrown out, Laura doesn’t even register the word as something that she should notice. 

Instead of responding to the greeting, Laura whirls with her cell phone in her hand and a days worth of failed attempts to find Betty under her belt. She snaps, “Who the frilly hell are you?” 

She hadn’t expected Carmilla to freeze. 

But she does. Freezes right in front of her, stuck standing between two beds and staring at Laura with a wide-eyed expression that decimates any badass cred she’d generated by storming in with leather pants on.

Laura frowns, “You okay there strange person who barged into my room uninvited?”

Carmilla shakes herself, the look sliding off her face as she walks to the empty bed, “I’m Carmilla. I’m your new roommate sweetheart.” The forced nonchalance in her words does nothing to keep Laura from seeing the side-eye Carmilla is giving her. Almost unwilling to let Laura out of her peripheral.

“First of all,” Laura stands, drawing on all 5 feet and 2 inches of her height, “you’re not my new roommate. I already have a roommate. Secondly, no-one stops flat like that when they walk into a room. So spill. Sweetheart.” Laura spits the last word and eyes the stranger.

Carmilla.

“It was nothing. Just surprised that a naive provincial girl like you hasn’t been eaten alive by the campus yet.” Carmilla attempts to get them back on track, ignoring Laura as she rifles through Betty’s things and steals a five dollar bills. 

Laura flails behind her, “That isn’t yours!” She shouts.

But then.

But then. Carmilla’s hand goes to her wrist, a minute adjustment to the chunky bracelet sitting there and Laura’s eye is drawn to the movement. To the place where the bracelet has slipped down just a little too much. A little too much is enough. The top of familiar words peeking from the leather as Laura’s own chunky printing stares back at her. Fast and messy.

‘Who the frilly hell are you’.

“Oh.” Laura stops. The anger dissipates, curling away like smoke and disappearing like the way Carmilla clutches at her wrist to hide the words. As though she could turn back time to some other version of their story. 

Instead, Laura flipped over her own wrist and shows Carmilla the single word adorned there. Letters drawn in neat calligraphy that Laura had traced a thousand times over with the tip of her finger. When the word you’re born with is so common; she clung to the subtleties of the handwriting. Every curve and twist and breath already indented in her veins. 

The only way she could hope to know the owner. 

“You’re not what I was expecting,” Laura admits. 

It hardly matters. Carmilla’s hand falls from where it’s covering her own words to brush against Laura’s skin. Against the word written there in thick black ink. Carmilla touches Laura like she wants to make sure it’s real. Her thumb rubs the skin like she’s hoping the ink will smudge right off.

It doesn’t. 

‘Hey’

Permanent. Entrenched in their story and written in Laura’s veins. An attempt at apathy. A constant and common but somehow not. An eternal greeting that will never fade. Just as Laura’s snap of anger will forever be written on Carmilla’s skin.

Hey.

That’s that. They’re soulmates. The words make it true.

#

Laura wants to bash her head against the wall. It was supposed to be easy. Find your soulmate and you’ll fall in love. They’ll be perfect for you. They’ll be your everything and you’ll fit together like two pieces of a puzzle. 

Instead, they fight. They fight all time until Laura’s fingers curl at the thought of even stepping into the dorm room. Carmilla is rude and insensitive and spends more of her time trying to stop Laura from investigating Betty’s disappearance than in helping her solve her. When Laura speaks of trying to do good, Carmilla literally mocks her for being too naive. For being too silly to see how cruel the world truly was. 

“You’re supposed to be my soulmate!” Laura throws her hands in the air as Carmilla tells her to just give up, “How can you even be like this? What the frilly hell even happened to you that you’d end up so twisted? What does that even mean for me if you’re my soulmate?”

Carmilla cracks her heart with four words, “Soulmates don’t exist, cupcake.”

Laura stares at her, “How can you even say that?”

Hey.

Who the frilly hell are you.

Carmilla chugs her soy milk straight from the container and rolls her eyes, “Because soulmates are something that the world just made up to make themselves feel better about the universe. Just because you and I have words written on our skin that lines up to some things we said, it doesn’t mean we’re soulmates. That’s not enough. We’re not soulmates because of any ink. It makes us two people who had a conversation. After all,” she gestured between them and scoffed, “does this seem like soulmates to you?”

Laura blinks. 

Carmilla smirks and sinks back into her bed, picking up a book.

Hey. A constant and common but somehow not. There will be other people who will say it to her a thousand times over, statistically speaking, Laura would have eventually responded to someone with the right words.

She takes a deep breath, “Fine. Maybe we’re not soulmates but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong about the rest of it. I refuse to believe that-”

And so the story returns to the script. 

Until.

“And maybe we’re not soulmates,” Laura lifts her chin and stares Carmilla down, “but maybe we are and I’m not letting you go until I figure it out. Because everyone deserves their shot at love even if the words don’t mean anything. I’m willing to try because maybe me are and I want to find out. I deserve to know the truth and to be loved. And so do you.”

Carmilla stares. Blinks. Sits up a little straighter. 

“So,” Laura nods and holds out her hand, “Hey.” Her wrist is up. The single word on prominent display.

Carmilla says nothing in return but, as Laura’s smile starts to fade just a little, she reaches out to take Laura’s hand. 

#

Carmilla dies and Laura sits. She sits with a blanket around her shoulders and bleary eyes at a dormroom that seems just a little bit darker. Her hand is on her wrist and holding it tight, covering the offending word that seem to glare back at her like a beacon.

We’re not soulmates because of any ink. Carmilla had said it and the words run through Laura’s head over and over again. The odds. The chances. Her word was so common.

Permanent. Entrenched in their story and written in Laura’s veins. An attempt at apathy. A constant and common but somehow not. An eternal greeting that will never fade.

Carmilla was supposed to be eternal; an immortal vampire who had seen more decades than Laura could even fathom. Now she was no more. Laura shifts, burrowing a little deeper into bed and drowning in the pillow that still somehow smells like Carmilla. Carmilla hadn’t been easy. She hadn’t been common. 

She was a just another roommate and a vampire. She was a thousand little arguments and a dance in a dorm room. She was blood in a milk container and a girl tied to a chair because Laura needed answers. She was a betrayal of Kirsch and drowning to retrieve a soul sucking sword. She was a soulmate and she wasn’t.

It didn’t matter. 

When the chips had been down, even insisting that she had no soulmate to the end, Carmilla had shown up. She’d shown up with a sword and a smirk and she’d dragged Laura from the fight only to throw herself into the thick of it. Carmilla had chosen and she’s chosen Laura. Soulmate or not. Carmilla had shown up.

Laura feels the sob bubble in her throat, clasping so hard to her own wrist that the skin turns white under the pressure. 

She had been Laura’s. Soulmate or not. Words or not. Laura had chosen her. 

Laura cries over everything and, at 2am, finds herself next to the pit. Hoping. Digging. The word might be permanently written on her skin but Laura chooses to hold on.

#

Carmilla’s body is lying on Laura’s bed and Laura sprints to the fridge, pulling out the soy milk and pouring the blood down Carmilla’s throat. Begging. Hoping. Praying. There’s a cough and stutter and Laura freezes as Carmilla slowly sits up. Her face is pale and her voice is ragged as she gives a quip.

It’s enough to unlock Laura’s bones. She rushes forward, slamming Carmilla into a hug like she never wants to let her go again and lets go only because she can’t look at Carmilla when she’s hugging her. 

They stare at each other and only one word springs to Laura’s mind. The same word she’s been tracing for days. 

“Hey,” she whispers.

Carmilla stares at her, smiles softly. Replies for the first time as her hand finds Laura’s wrist and the word written on it.

“Hey.”

As Laura kisses Carmilla, the hey fresh on Carmilla’s lips, the word feels like a promise. A choice. A soulmate.

#

There are a hundred and one problems that Laura should be dealing with but Carmilla is warm as Laura snuggles up against her and she can’t bring herself to care about any of them. She just lets herself sink for a moment into the chair and her girlfriend. Carmilla slowly flips the pages of her book, something stolen from her mother’s library, and her breath comes out steady. Laura’s head shifting with her exhale. 

It’s comfortable and warm and maybe she can’t run away with Carmilla but, for now, she can just have this.

Laura leans up, her hand finding the back of Carmilla’s beck as the word on her wrist presses to Carmilla’s skin.

It might be too soon to say the three little words but there are many ways to say the same thing. 

“Hey,” Laura whispers.

Carmilla looks at her, a smile already in place, “Hey.” 

Laura isn’t sure who moves but the kiss is slow. Steady. A constant and common but somehow not. She smiles and settles deeper into Carmilla’s side as Carmilla goes back to her reading.

A single finger tracing the word up and down Laura’s arm.

#

It was supposed to be easy. They were supposed to be soulmates. Laura sags into her chair, freshly dried tears on her cheeks from the moment only hours before when all her stress had just bubbled over. The air is cold around her as the dark seemed to close in; Perry is freshly bandaged and upstairs in her room. Carmilla is waiting in the dark. 

Carmilla her soulmate. Or not.

Carmilla her ex-girlfriend. 

Carmilla who had thrown the words “i love you” while in the middle of breaking up with her because Laura had pushed her too far. Asked too much. She’d always thought that she’d find her soulmate and that would be it. It would be done. No more conflict or hardship.

She hadn’t even been able to say ‘i love you back’. It was too soon. How could she know after only months. 

Yet.

When she sees Carmilla sitting in that chair, trying to look like she doesn’t care but so obviously waiting for her - to make sure Laura’s okay. The word tumbles from Laura’s mouth, “Hey.”

Carmilla doesn’t say it back.

Carmilla knows better than that. Hey is a constant. They are apparently anything but constant and Laura has no idea if they’re soulmates or not. If soulmates even exist. 

She wants to believe it. 

So when Carmilla asks if Laura misses her, Laura can barely choke out the words, “Like someone cut a hole in me.” Holes can be silent. She tries to remember how Carmilla waited for her and clings to whatever remains of them with trembling hands. 

Hey.

No response.

#

She did it all wrong. She did everything wrong. Laura pushes back the sob in throat and looks at the webcam, admitting every error she ever made in life and about Carmilla. She killed Mattie. Laura killed Mattie and perhaps Carmilla’s not the reason that they don’t work as soulmates. It’s her. It’s Laura. It’s always been her. She’s the one who pushed too hard and didn’t understand and could never say those three little words. 

So she sit and confesses her sins to the only person who will still listen - the webcam light blinking back at her. Carmilla is gone, as she should be, wrecking terror across campus after Laura got Carmilla’s only family member killed. 

Probably regretting every moment she ever thought Laura her soulmate. 

There is no-one left to listen and Carmilla is gone so Laura clings to the only thing she still can that might connect her to Carmilla. That Carmilla is still watching her videos. That she might care just enough to check in. 

Even from a distance. 

That she hasn’t let go yet, despite everything Laura’s done wrong. 

So Laura talks to the webcam, streaming everything thought live. Hoping. The sudden terrifying realization that she wants Carmilla to be her soulmate. That she will cling and scream and beg the universe to give her this despite her sins. Despite the fact that she’s pretty sure she doesn’t deserve it. So Laura talks and begs. Laura waits. 

She stares at the blinking light of the red camera.

The one call she was hoping for doesn’t come through.

She turns away, hiding tears behind a hand pressed to her face. Only the edges of a tattoo poking out from a ragged cloth hastily tied around it. She couldn’t bring herself to look at it.

Then. The light flicks on and Carmilla’s face fills her screen, “What do you want Laura?” Carmilla snaps.

Laura starts. Stares. A single word tumbles out, “Hey.”

Carmilla just glares at her. The conversation goes awry and Laura is left with Carmilla blowing her off, left to fight the monsters on her own. But. She holds tight to the fact that Carmilla picked up at all. 

Soulmates aren’t easy. But Carmilla is hers. 

She hopes she might still be Carmilla.

#

When Vordenberg comes for her, Carmilla dragged on a chain behind him as he makes to strike off her head, Laura can’t do it. 

That’s her soulmate. 

She’s decided. 

So she kills him. She saves Carmilla and sacrifices everything else.

#

They’re hiding in the library, stuck fleeing from the destruction on campus. The destruction that she made. All Laura can do is stare into nothing, clinging tight to the blanket that Carmilla wrapped around her shoulders. 

She burned it all down. She burned it all down and she hardly even cares because Carmilla is here. Pale and bloody but here. She’s here with Laura and what does that say about Laura is she’d burn the world down to save a girl she’s decided is her soulmate even though everything about them is hard and terrible and not easy.

Constant. 

But then Carmilla looks at her. Eyes concerned as she dumps chocolate chip cookies on Laura’s lap, “Hey.”

And Laura wants to cry, swallows down the tears. 

She can’t bring herself to say it back.

#

Carmilla’s hand is tight on her wrist, clinging to the word on her skin, as Laura’s hand does the same to Carmilla’s arm. The world is literally ending and one of them will probably die tomorrow, after weeks hiding in the library, and Laura doesn’t care. She doesn’t care because she has Carmilla in her arms. 

She grips just a little tighter, tears already wet on her cheeks as she presses her forehead against Carmilla. The words of Carmilla speech, her horrible but sincere attempt at cheering Laura up, sinking into her sink. A tear-soaked kiss fresh on her lips.

“I’m not letting you go,” she promises as Carmilla pulls her closer, “The world may be falling apart and soulmates might be hard but I’m not letting you go. I know you don’t believe in soulmates but you,” she closes her eyes and just breathes Carmilla in, “you’re mine. You’re it for me.”

Carmilla’s breath hitches and Laura feels it in her own chest, “We’re not soulmates because of these words,” Laura continues, “we’re not soulmates because the universe said so or because it’s easy. We’re not soulmates because of fate or destiny or the hand of the gods. The universe has done nothing but try to pull us apart and this is the opposite of easy.”

Laura takes a deep breath, “We’re soulmates because I refuse to let you even when it gets hard. We’re soulmates because even when the world throws the worst things at us, when we’re fighting or broken up or falling apart, you’re still the person I turn to look at. We’re soulmates because I can’t stop reaching out for you and every time, I still find your fingertips.” 

There are tears in her eyes, “And maybe that’s common but I’ll take common and constant and hard over unique and changing and fake every single day. I’ve got common and constant written on my skin and you’ve got anger on yours. So maybe that’s what we do, it gets hard and we fight but we’re always there to start again. To just say hey. Every single time. I’ll say it every time.”

“I love you,” as soon as Laura says it, a sob leaks out from Carmilla, her forehead still pressed to Laura, hands holding her tight. “I love you,” Laura repeats, “Why shouldn’t that be soulmates?”

#

She is dead. Then she isn’t. Frankly, Laura doesn’t know what to make of the whole thing. 

All she knows is that when the words fade, death locked somewhere inside them, she looks up and sees Carmilla holding her close and crying over her. 

Only one word slips out, “Hey.”

Carmilla laughs wet tears and kisses her on the dusty floor.

#

The word came more casually after that. Used for good morning kisses and evening hellos and lunchtime meal runs. Laura thinks she’s grown used to, looking on its significance fondly after holding tight to Carmilla’s hand for five years. 

But. There Carmilla has a past and they are sent to a mansion that contains every one of Carmilla’s ghosts. Fear prickles in Laura’s chest like it hasn’t in years. 

And it slips off Carmilla’s tongue.

When Laura wakes up from bad dreams come again. “Hey,” Carmilla asks, “Are you alright?” Already reaching out to hold her close.

When Laura panics, spinning on the dance floor to find a ghost no-one else can see. Carmilla races to her side with a “Hey” on her tongue.

When Laura breaks, just breaks, because Carmilla dies again and she has no time to process it. Carmilla pulls her close when it finally washes over her and holds her tight. When Laura breaks, tears in her eyes and a ballgown she suddenly hates hanging from her shoulders. “Hey,” her words are soft, “come here.”

When a dream slices Laura’s hand open, Carmilla runs to hold it, “Laura! Hey, are you alright.”

But the worst is in the moment when Carmilla dies. Carmilla literally dies at Laura’s feet after her lifeforce is stolen. There is nothing Laura Hollis fears more than Carmilla’s death. She puts a hand on Carmilla’s pulse and her trembling hands come up with nothing. The fear washes through her, hands almost shaking Carmilla as she begs, “Carm. Carm? Carm?” She shakes her harder. Only one word in her mind, “Hey. Hey. Come on. Hey. Carm. Hey!” Laura’s voice is raspy, shaky. Near to breaking and desperation rolls through her, “Carm,” she calls, “Hey.”

Laura’s breath whooshes out when Carmilla moves under her touch, slowly turning to look at her. Eyes fluttering open. “Hey.” Laura says one last time.

Carmilla closes her eyes but her fingers find Laura’s wrist, “Hey.” 

Hey.

Hey.

The circle closed.

#

It’s only months later, safely back in Toronto when Laura notices something. She sits, stares, gapes at the computer screen. It’s open to Carmilla’s twitter. The same name that Carmilla’s had for literal years, created shortly after they met. 

“Carm?” Laura calls, “You. Your twitter.”

Carmilla gets up and kisses Laura on the temple. Her eyes closed, lips smiling, “What can I say cupcake? I may have been broody but I’ve always been sentimental.” She kisses Laura again, “I chose you from the beginning.” 

Laura stares at the screen a minute longer then catches Carmilla as she’s walking away and kisses her hard. The computer screen blinking behind them.

@heycarmilla

**Author's Note:**

> it's in her twitter name! it's in her CANON social media name. Fight me. I used the soulmate part because i wanted to write about it not being easy but also to emphasize the "hey" aspect but I 100% fanon believe that 'hey' is their thing.
> 
> It's the last week already?!? How the time flies. Cupcakes, in these last final days and as I try to find time to finish strong, I can only thank you for your support and for every single kudos, comment, and [ tumblr stop-in](http://ariabauer.tumblr.com/) that has gotten us here.


End file.
